And how can that equal to "Microsoft is moving away from X86"?
ARM is just a side project for Microsoft.
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ARM is just a side project for Microsoft.
Windows ARM is a first class citizen and not just a side project. You are getting the same updates the same day as the x86 versions. Even on the fast ring insider builds, you are getting the same versions for ARM as x86 - with updates around each two weeks.
But of course, the plan is not to move away from x86 - but to treat ARM and x86 equally.
First of all, you talk about emulation and not virtualization. Virtualization only works with host and client being the same architecture.
Second even if we are talking about x86 system emulation - that would be a totally stupid approach for the following reasons:
1) Ideally you only want to emulate the application and not the whole OS - which is only possible if you run Windows ARM as client.
2) QEMU is much slower than the emulation provided by Windows ARM.
3) You can only run native Windows ARM apps if your client OS is Windows ARM. Ideally you would want to run as many native ARM apps under Windows as possible - This is just not possible if you run x86 Windows under x86 system emulation.
4) Parallels can provide Windows DirectX drivers (which eventually translate to Metal) using native ARM code only if the client OS is Windows ARM. Under x86 system emulation and Windows x86 this driver would be x86 code and needs to be emulated as well - significantly degrading your gfx performance.
And finally providing x86 system emulation is much higher effort compared to Virtualization - despite only having disadvantages.
They don't seem to be viewing it with the same priority. Most of Microsoft's own stuff doesn't run on it natively. They're working on that, yes, but hardly at a breathtaking pace.
Windows on ARM originally shipped in 2012(!), eight years ago, and yet things like "can I run a WPF app on ARM, natively?" still have the status of "well, someday, maybe, if you blink twice".
So, no, I don't think "first-class citizen" is a fair assessment.
We were talking about Windows itself and not all the apps Microsoft has in its portfolio. It is clear, that if Apps run great under emulation the pressure for native ARM version is not particularly high.
You are talking about Windows RT, a restricted 32 bit Version of Windows. Windows on ARM was released 2017/18 as a fully featured 64 bit Windows version available for all SKUs (home, pro, enterprise/server).
As far as WPF is concerned, it is on the official roadmap for 21H1. Meanwhile we also got OpenJDK native ARM64 as well as ARM64 Windows Forms support.
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The fact that you are getting updates as fast as normal Windows doesn't mean it's not a side project.
Microsoft's attitude towards prioritizing porting their apps and frameworks is reflective to how important they think Windows on ARM is.
They don't.
The pre-release name of Windows RT was Windows on ARM, because it's the same thing. About the only difference is that they've added an emulator and loosened restrictions on Win32 code.
A runtime release in 21H1 is unlikely, so we probably won't see the first release of WPF on ARM until .NET 6 in November 2021.
It does mean, that not a single Windows code change/feature is approved, without sign-off on both x86 and ARM64 platforms - which in turn means both platforms are treated equally as far as Windows development is concerned.
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As far as prioritization is concerned - it is typically a function of effort vs market share. Despite this many teams inside Microsoft spending over-proportional effort into making things available for ARM64. As example look at the most recent status updates from the .NET RyuJIT team - they are mostly ARM64 related.
Bold statement! Which Microsoft apps do you have problems with performance-wise and on which machine?
Wrong again. Windows RT was strictly an Windows 8 version for ARMv7 (32 bit). Windows on ARM as we know it today is Windows 10 for ARMv8 (64 bit). Big difference!
When going from ARMv7 to ARMv8 you can go as well from MIPS to ARMv8. The only thing making the former transition easier is the compatibility of ARMv8 to ARMv7 via ARM32 mode. This did not help Windows development much as it is a native ARMv8 Aarch64 OS.
Also Windows on ARM implemented separated WoW layers for ARM32 and x86...none of these were present in Windows RT.
It is planned for 21H1 and for .NET 5. Please inform yourself.
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Well, that's exactly what @M3gatron and I have been saying: MS doesn't seem to see much market success, so they don't prioritize it much. Not sure why you're arguing with it.
That's not Windows-specific, though. A lot of that is also about ARM servers, Android phones, etc.
I mean, LOL.
So, iOS became a completely different OS when it went from 32-bit to 64-bit? Hardly.
Windows on ARM is now ARM64 on NT, with an x86-32 emulator. Before that, it was ARM32 on NT, with no emulator. It's an obvious evolution.
First of all, that's absurd, and second, NT has run on many architectures for decades. Including, wouldn't you know it, MIPS.
.NET 5 is shipping in three months.
Can Windows on ARM run 32-bit X86 applications? Last time i checked, it couldn’t. A lot of important applications used by businesses are 32-bit X86 apps.
As for virtualizing X86 Windows on Apple Silicon Macs, I already explained above that it can only be done once X86 is emulated, so please don’t put your words in my mouth. I never said you can virtualize X86 Windows on ARM without X86 emulation.
I made if perfectly clear, that not a single change or feature adder to Windows is committed without being signed off on both ARM and x86 - so ARM compatibility and feature parity of Windows is anything else than a afterthought.
Which is by the way another difference to Windows RT, where ARM was a second class citizen as there were neither feature parity nor any common features release between ARM and x86 Windows back in the days. A bug in Windows ARM (RT) was not considered a showstopper for an x86 release.
So as far as prioritization and Windows is concerned, they are treated absolutely equally.
Windows 10 for ARM server is just another SKU of Windows 10 on ARM.
So i guessed right - you have no idea what you are talking about - just relying on hearsay and dubious benchmarks. A benchmark tells you nothing if the concrete experience with an application will differ at all. Will you notice any difference if say the Windows Calculator was emulated? - you wont. Will you notice any difference if Windows Paint was native or emulated? You wont. Or Windows Media Player perhaps? You wont.
So i was asking about a particular Microsoft application which feels slow due to emulation - you cant name any. Thats because most application which could potentially feel slow like the Edge Browser, Office or Visual Studio Code have already been updated to a native version by Microsoft.
The problem with you argument is, that you are lacking 1st hand experience.
It is clear that a complex System like Windows including many frameworks (you named WPF as example), which you cant just re-compile, takes years to completely switch from ARMv7 to ARMv8 as far as native code is concerned - and the progress is very steady.
And the first ARM64 release was like 2018 and not 2012.
Your super-simple and restricted iOS example does not carry your argument very far.
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Windows ARM can load and run 32 bit ARM, 64 bit ARM and 32 bit x86 applications. For this it has all system DLLs in 3 versions. Kernel and drivers are always 64 bit ARM.
Indeed most important applications are x86 32 bit or have such a version.
From my own experience regarding x86 emulation you have high compatibility with bussiness apps and lower compatibility with games (From all the games i tested around 70% do work). This could point to an issues in the Qualcomm Direct3d driver and might not be fault of the emulation.
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So Visual Studio 2021 will run natively on ARM?
Yes, yes. In 2012, the experience was godawful. In 2020, it's only a _little_ awful.
That is indeed, strictly speaking, a difference.
😂
Who said anything about _Windows_ servers? This is .NET Core. If you're gonna run it on an ARM server, you're probably gonna use Linux.
Are you serious right now? You're… excited that it can run Calculator at good performance?
How many people run only Calculator and Paint?
And… Media Player? The app whose last major release was in… 2009? Way before even Windows RT? What on earth?
Visual Studio (not the Electron text editor; the IDE)? AutoCAD? Photoshop? Or, really, about anything by Adobe?
The problem with yours is, you think you should bring up Calculator (???) and an eleven-year-old deprecated app as examples of the way Microsoft treats ARM as a first-class citizen.
Huh?
Once again, Windows already ran on MIPS a quarter century ago. Microsoft has absolutely no trouble porting it to a different arch. And, once again, ARM64 is not that different an arch, good grief. Apple Watch moved to it and nobody even really noticed.
If they were serious about it, they could have delivered more a long time ago. They also could've made a big push for third-party developers to do so, too. Y'know, the way Apple does. They chose to do neither, because really, Windows on ARM is largely a novelty effort to give a flashing yellow warning sign to Intel to get their act together, not a serious attempt to make ARM a first-class citizen. If they can make a quick buck or two from Surface Pro X, they're happy to, and if they can't and it still works to light a fire under the Tiger Lake and So Many Other Lakes teams' asses, that's OK with them as well.
I'm able to put the Parallel's macOS 11 window in a full screen, but macOS 11 stays at a lower resolution and doesn't automatically adjust to the new screen resolution.
Sounds strange.
Did you reinstall Parallels Tools?
Also how did you enter "full screen"?
Yeah, I’m having the same issue. Reinstalled Parallels tools and still have basic resolution, not full screen.
I am not excited at all - did i sound exited? I am just answering the question, why Microsoft has not updated all Windows bundled apps to ARM64 - because it does not matter at all for the user-experience.
It would help the discussion, if you would not try putting words in my mouth.
Seriously? You are complaining that you cannot run Autocad with sufficient speed on a 7W tablet? You should not have bought a tablet in the first place, when your plan is to run Autocad.
Also why bringing in 3rd party apps into the discussion - the discussion was about Microsoft.
Not really... I bring them as examples of why Microsoft has not ported all apps - not as example for the way Microsoft treats ARM - because that would be pretty much counter productive for my argument, wouldn't it?
Windows NT back in the days was orders of magnitude less complex than Windows 10 is today. Back in the days we did not have any WoW layers, .Net/CLI, WPF, Virtualization, WSL along with other technologies and frameworks like Java, Electron etc. which are highly CPU architecture dependent.
Not sure why you bring 20+ years old Windows versions and MIPS into the discussion - this is totally irrelevant today.
Besides all of the above is available as native ARM64. Exception is WPF, which is expected part of .Net Core 5.
Apple is 100% moving to ARM while Microsoft is not. There is a difference of "being serious" and "being all in" because you move your whole platform to be ARM exclusive.
If you see Apple products the cost of memory and SSD are very high! With Apple Silicon it is going to be worse and you cannot upgrade! So having virtual OS needs additional memory and SSD! Each memory or SSD addition costs 20,000 rupees or more! Separate hardware and OS working closely with hardware is better with high performance! It is better we have separate computer for each OS and use remote desktop to work locally! It is better people move to one or more device OS from single vendor later on eliminating virtual OS! Parallels I loved your software, but you don't have bright future! I own a parallels software for Mac, but cannot install Windows 10 in it, since it supports older version! Parallels I cannot upgrade, better i purchase Windows PC separately with mind peace!
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You can download free VMWare Fusion to run any OS in virtualization on the Mac. VMWare Fusion (non-Professional edition) became free this year.
Parallels will continue charging for upgrade every year. But then again, they have already demoed virtualization on the Apple Silicon of non X86-based OSes. So, you will be able to virtualize Linux for ARM and Windows for ARM for the time being. No one knows yet if it will ever be possible to run X86 based Windows on the Apple Silicon Macs.